Sweden in Focus

This week's Sweden in Focus Extra podcast features an interview with Simon Montgomery, a British-American father facing expulsion from Sweden despite wanting to stay to take care of his one-year-old son.

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In this week's episode of Sweden in Focus Extra, The Local's Mandy Pipher catches up with a dad who has been fighting for the past year to be able to stay in Sweden with his baby son, despite a deportation order from the Swedish Migration Agency.

Although he's no longer together with his child's German mother, Simon Montgomery was determined to stay in Sweden to be fully present in his son't upbringing.

But he was left speechless by a migration court ruling that visa-free travel meant he could continue parenting from the UK and would not be granted leave to remain in Sweden.

Tune in to this week's podcast for the full story.

READ ALSO: 'He's the reason I'm here': Dad fights to stay in Sweden with baby son

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This week: Why are the Social Democrats acting like bit players? Why have a mother-to-be and an active father been told to leave Sweden? Are immigration laws scaring off foreign workers? And what do you need to know about All Saints' Day in Sweden?

There was a time when getting married to a Swede was an easy way to stay in Sweden. But these days it's a bit more complicated than that, host James Savage explains, citing the example of Brenda Ramström who recently had to fly to Brazil or risk a re-entry ban despite being 21 weeks pregnant.

We also saw a case this week about a British man who has been denied permission to stay despite being the father of a one-year-old child who lives in Sweden.

What's the logic behind these decisions?

To answer this and other questions, James is joined this week by panelists Mandy Pipher and Emma Löfgren.

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Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Swedish parliamentary speaker picks Centre Party leader as next PM candidate
• New poll shows Sweden's Moderate Party just behind Social Democrats
• Swedish finance minister prepares caretaker budget stripped of campaign promises

• 'I want to be with my husband': Pregnant woman forced to leave Sweden
• Swedish business sector urges next government to overhaul global talent strategy

• Halloween vs All Saints' Day: How to celebrate in Sweden

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This week's Sweden in Focus Extra podcast features an interview with Matilda Molander, head of the green and liberal Fores think tank.

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Sweden's Centre Party emerged from the 2026 election as a potential kingmaker and leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist has expressed a preference for the Social Democrats' Magdalena Andersson as Sweden's next prime minister.

But the party has also ruled out collaborating in a government that contains the Left Party, a sticking point that has left coalition-building negotiations at an impasse.

Matilda Molander from the Fores think tank recently floated the possibility of the Centre Party edging its way back into the right-wing fold it abandoned over concessions to the Sweden Democrats.

The Local's Richard Orange caught up with her recently to find out more about the Centre Party's pivotal role and what's likely to happen next in Swedish politics.

Tune in to this week's Sweden in Focus Extra for the full analysis.

READ ALSO: What would it take for Sweden's Centre Party to back Ulf Kristersson as PM?

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This week: Halloween in Sweden, Swedish media coverage of the Tidö government’s migration crackdown, our favourite Swedish children’s books, efforts to form Sweden’s next government, and a language quiz.

The last four years have seen sweeping change for immigrants in Sweden.

For many of The Local's readers, the lack of transitional rules in the new citizenship law caused untold stress. The same goes for multiple changes to the salary threshold required for a work permit.

Teen deportations hit the headlines in Sweden last year. But why did it take so long? And how come Swedish media missed so much of what was impacting the lives of people who chose to make Sweden their home?

Host Richard Orange is joined this week by panelists Mandy Pipher and Emma Löfgren.

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Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• OPINION: Why I wish Sweden would just stop with Halloween

• How did Swedish media cover the 'migration paradigm shift'?

• Region Stockholm reaches centrist governing agreement, freezing out the left
• What does Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist really want?
• What would it take for Sweden's Centre Party to back Ulf Kristersson as PM?

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This week’s Sweden in Focus Extra features an interview with Brenda and Marcus Ramström, a couple in western Sweden who speak to The Local days before she is forced to return to her native Brazil following a Migration Court ruling.

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Brenda Ramström, a former Northvolt worker, is 21 weeks pregnant as she boards a flight on Tuesday for the first leg of a gruelling 23 hour journey to Brazil.

She has no clear idea of when she will be allowed to return to Sweden.

She and her husband Marcus tell The Local's Emma Löfgren that they were shocked and devastated when they received confirmation in late September that Brenda had four weeks to leave Sweden of her own volition or risk an entry ban.

Tune in to this week's Sweden in Focus Extra for the full story.

Read also: ‘I want to be with my husband’: Pregnant woman forced to leave Sweden

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This week: First month post-election ends with no government, breakthrough on ending teen deportations, a plan to help citizenship applicants hit retroactively by the new law, and a reminder of some of the best things about living in Sweden.

More than a month has passed since Sweden’s election, and we still don’t have a government. As we were recording this week's episode, the Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson lost a vote in parliament on installing her as prime minister. So what happens now?

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Mandy Pipher and Emma Löfgren.

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Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Does losing parliament vote mean Andersson can't be Sweden's next PM?
• Moderates hit five-year high in Swedish post-election poll as Liberals slip

• How Sweden's 'new majority' can already move on deportations and citizenship
• All Swedish parties back emergency freeze on teen deportations
• Swedish MP seeks to apply old rules to all pre-June 6th citizenship applicants

• Remembering what I love about this country

Thumbnail photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT

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This week’s Sweden in Focus Extra features an interview with AI consultant Anna Bärlund, who won an appeal last week against her Swedish citizenship rejection.

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On June 6th, Sweden rolled out major new citizenship reforms that included increasing the length of time that the partners of Swedish citizens have to live in Sweden before they become eligible for citizenship from three years to seven years.

What's more, the government didn't include transitional rules for those already in the queue despite the protestations of legal experts.

Consequently, many people who met the requirements when they applied are now being rejected. Until now Sweden's courts have sided with the Migration Agency, so when The Local's Emma Löfgren learned that Anna Bärlund had won her appeal, she was curious to find out more.

READ ALSO:

• AI consultant wins appeal under Sweden’s new citizenship rules

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This week: Tortuous efforts to form a government, plans to stop teen deportations, how new rules on family reunification could make life harder for university researchers, and what do The Local’s readers miss most when living in Sweden?

The four parties that claimed victory in the election are still a long way from forming a government, but there has been movement this week as they agreed to meet in person.

The parties will meet on Friday at a luxury hotel on the island of Lidingö, near Stockholm. But the plan is not to negotiate; instead they will be given a series of briefings on the problems facing Sweden.

The initiative came from the Centre Party, which has taken a lot of the blame for the lack of progress due to its insistence that the Left Party be denied ministerial posts in any coalition. But will it break the deadlock?

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Mandy Pipher and Richard Orange.

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Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Four-party meeting set to test Sweden's government potential
• Magdalena Andersson once again given job of building new Swedish government

• What's in Sweden's new law on family reunification?
• Q&A: How will Sweden's new family immigration law affect researchers?
• Q&A: Who is affected by Sweden's new law on family immigration?

• Sweden's centre-left parties agree on halting teen deportations
• Sweden's migration minister pledges long-term solution to teen deportations

• 'Flavourful food and friendliness': What foreigners in Sweden miss from 'home'

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Gift Blessing is only 24 years old, but has already achieved an enormous amount. He is a rapper, an author, a newspaper columnist, and a poet.

He came to Sweden as a quota refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a young child. He broke through to public consciousness in 2021 with a bravura rap performance in Sweden's Got Talent (Talang).

Last month he was made Sweden's official reading ambassador with a mission to get young people reading.

And this week he is releasing an anthology of writing in English from writers from all around the world, but who are based in Stockholm.

This week's Sweden in Focus Extra features Gift Blessing in conversation with The Local's James Savage.

READ ALSO:

• In Sweden, there are only good, bad, ugly and evil immigrants – a recent long read for The Local by Faisal Khan, one of the contributors to the new anthology, 'Upon All the Living'.

Thumbnail photo by Maja Brand.

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Magdalena Andersson was acclaimed as the winner of Sweden’s election. Four parties – adding up to a majority – said they wanted her to be prime minister, and she was charged by the speaker with forming a government. Yet on Monday she threw in the towel.

The immediate pretext was the decision by the Left Party to support the re-election of speaker Andreas Norlén, a Moderate, over the Social Democrats’ own candidate.

But it followed two weeks in which Andersson had failed to get the Centre Party, Left Party and Greens to so much as take a cup of coffee with each other.

Now it’s up to the speaker to find someone else willing to have a go.

Host James Savage is joined this week by panelists Emma Löfgren and Richard Orange.

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Here are links to some of the topics discussed in the episode:

• Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson abandons attempt to form a government
• Strategy or spite? Why is Magda giving up on forming Sweden's next government?
• EXPLAINED: What needs to happen for Sweden to get a new prime minister?
• From the obvious to the unthinkable: Nine options for Sweden's government

• 'But what are the rules?': My interview with the Swedish Migration Agency's legal chief

Thumbnail photo: Left Party leader Nooshi Dadgostar and Centre Party leader Elisabeth Thand Ringqvist take part in a party leader discussion hosted by RFSL during Stockholm Pride. Photo: Stefan Jerrevång/TT

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